News

The UW-La Crosse Football and Dance teams will once again be staging the 6th
Annual Rob Wagner Cancer Benefit tonight and tomorrow. Wagner's teammate, Eric
Johnson started the event.

Wagner was diagnosed with cancer in his wrist which led to him to cut his
football career short at UW-L. The benefit, with proceeds going to Gunderson
Lutheran Steppin Out In Pink progra, is tonight at 7pm and tomorrow night at 5,
both being held at the Graff Main Hall Auditorium. In 5 years they have raised
over $5o thousand.

(AP) Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen says he
doesn't know whether Wisconsin is any more or less safe now that 100,000 permits
have been issued allowing people to carry concealed weapons. But Van Hollen said
Friday that no problems have been reported since the law went into effect six
months ago and if it deters crime, that's an added benefit. Van Hollen spoke
inside the Department of Justice room where the permits are printed. Van Hollen
holds the first permit issued by the state, but he says it's not known yet who
will be issued the 100,000th on Friday. Van Hollen says the demand for permits
has been strong. The agency anticipated 125,000 would be issued in the first
year but it's nearly reached that after just six months.

(AP) Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen says he is
very concerned about voter fraud as six recall elections near, including one
targeting fellow Republican, Gov. Scott Walker. Van Hollen was asked about fraud
concerns Friday given that the state's law requiring voters to show photo
identification at the polls has been blocked by two Dane County judges. The
state Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up the case, making it unlikely
that the law will be reinstated before the May 8 primary or June 5 general
election. Van Hollen says voter fraud is always a risk and he has no reason to
believe it's any less of a concern in the recalls. He says his office is moving
forward with appeals of the lawsuits as quickly as possible.

(AP) Planned Parenthood plans to end nonsurgical
abortions at its Wisconsin clinics. The organization's leaders say Planned
Parenthood will continue to provide surgical abortions at its clinics in
Madison, Milwaukee and the Appleton area. Planned Parenthood CEO Teri Huyck says
the agency is suspending medication-induced abortions beginning Friday because
of a new state law that subjects doctors who perform abortions to criminal
penalties. The new law mandates that women having nonsurgical abortions visit
the same doctor three times and that doctors ensure the woman is having the
procedure voluntarily and without coercion. Huyck says the law sets
unprecedented barriers for women seeking medication abortions. Planned
Parenthood says about 25 percent of women who terminated pregnancies use the
pill-induced abortion which requires a woman to take two drugs within the first
nine weeks of pregnancy.

La Crosse Fire Chief, Greg Cleveland, is applauding the news that the
Department of Military Affairs is scrapping plans to alter the way local
hazardous materials teams are funded. He says he saw the plan.

He says the decision to protect funding for local fire departments will help
to create stability for businesses, communities and first responders.

Last week, the West Salem School Board formally approved an employee
handbook for the 2012-2013 school year. The 62-page document replaces the
agreements that were in place until last year when the the state Legislature
voted to curtail most public workers’ collective bargaining rights. Something
totally new for Superintendent, Troy Gunderson.

Gunderson says in the coming months they will be setting things up in a
more professional manner, but it’s going to take some hard work from
everybody.

Seems as though the NFL is leaning on the State of Minnesota to get a new
stadium bill passed....and now. Joining Governor Mark Dayton this morning was
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Pittsburgh Steelers Owner, Art Rooney, who is
also on the NFL's Stadium Board.

Rooney says they did not threaten the Vikings to get a stadium bill
passed.....just an indicator from the NFL that a combined solution has to be
made.....and soon.

It will cost you an extra few bucks to fly out of
La Crosse in the near future. The city plans to start collecting
four and a half bucks extra fee per passenger starting in January 2016.
The plan is to use the money to do upgrades to the airport terminal and to the
radio system, to buy a new backup generator and a snow removal
truck. The per-passenger charge is scheduled to be collected for six years
and is expected to generate about 2.8 million dollars. The city's taking
public comment on the fee until mid May.

Usually, state mandates come with a little frustration from the locals that have to enact those mandates. But La Crosse sheriff Steve Helgeson says, if the state decided to start collecting DNA during certain arrests, he wouldn't have a problem with it. He says swabbing the inside of a cheek for DNA isn't much different from taking fingerprints, which jailers do for every person booked into the jail. Helgeson says the DNA samples would have to handled differently, but he thinks the jailers wouldn't have a problem dealing with that.

The benefit to collecting the samples, says Helgeson, is that those DNA collections would provide a quicker reference when investigating crimes. Governor Walker has proposed collecting DNA at arrest for certain crimes.